Foreign Workers in Israel

Explores how the entry of migrant workers into Israel raises questions beyond just those of the labor market. Explores how the entry of migrant workers into Israel raises questions beyond just those of the labor market.
In this account of a social experiment gone awry, Israel Drori exposes a little-known and recent phenomenon: the importation of foreign workers from Third World economies to Israel. Focusing on Romanian, Thai, and Filipina migrants brought to Israel for specified periods of employment, Drori examines the effect of migrants on Israeli society, particularly the issue of national identity. What began as a political corrective—avoiding the danger of hiring Palestinians to do work that Jewish Israelis would not—has developed into a social and economic problem the state does not know how to handle. In addition to examining the work experiences and social lives of these workers, Drori also situates the Israeli case within a global context, where many affluent nations have significant populations of marginalized, undocumented workers.
Israel Drori is Professor at the School of Business Administration, College of Management, Israel, and also teaches at the Department of Public Policy at Tel Aviv University. He is the author of The Seam Line: Arab Workers and Jewish Managers in the Israeli Textile Industry and coauthor (with Izhak Schnell and Michael Sofer) of Arab Industrialization in Israel: Ethnic Entrepreneurship in the Periphery.

Cover

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

Figures and Tables

Foreword

This book addresses labor immigration in Israel and its dialectic relations with
state policies informed by Jewish Zionist national ideologies. The immigrant
workers’ life circumstances in Israel, as “Aliens in a Homeland,” form a core
paradox in Israel’s identity, as a state that was established as a refuge ground
for millions of Jews.When it comes to its “others,” “the Gentiles,” one...

ONE Introduction

International labor migration is one of the distinctive characteristics of globalization.
The blessings of globalization are disseminating an advanced infrastructure,
technological modernization, and patterns of consumption, together
with social ideas and standards, also accompanied by economic gaps and
income disparities created between the global north and the global...

TWO Labor Migration in Israel: Theoretical Context

This chapter addresses the ensuing debate over labor migration in Israel, first
expressed in definitions of “legal” and “illegal” migration and later transformed
into an issue of citizenship and national identity. My fundamental argument
can be stated as follows: The policies and practices regarding foreign workers
in Israel do not necessarily reflect any desired economic or social reality...

THREE The Evolution of Government Policies and the Migrant Labor Employment System

“The flow of labor migration,” writes Douglas Massey, has created a “postmodern
paradox,” stemming from the nature of globalization: “While the
global economy unleashes powerful forces that produce larger and more
diverse flows of migrants from developing to developed countries, it simultaneously
creates conditions within developed countries that promote...

FOUR Employment Practices: The System of Placement Agencies

In early December 1997, the Israeli Stock Exchange surprisingly expressed
interest in the living conditions of the labor migrants. Oz Atid, a daughter
company of manpower giant Dan El, made a public offering of stock to raise
42 million New Israeili Shebel (NIS) for expanding its labor migrants’ import
operations. In spite of the recession in the market, their effort was a...

FIVE Living and Working as Non-Israelis: Filipino Caregivers

Linda says, “You cannot compare patients. Each one is a separate world.” But
she likes Klara, the elderly woman for whom she cares, an intelligent person
who reads German books and newspapers and gives Linda ample time to talk
with friends on the telephone. On afternoons they go for walks, to a different
place every day. Often, on such afternoons, Linda meets cousins...

SIX Thai Agricultural Workers

The world’s agricultural sector has long been linked to special programs for
foreign workers. The well-known Bracero program in the United States, for
example, recruited millions of seasonal Mexican workers for the prospering
farms in southwestern states during its twenty-two years of operation
(1942–1964) (Martin 2002; Martin et al. 1995). In Europe, the...

SEVEN Rumanian Construction Workers

The construction industry, including the small but significant building renovation
sector, has consistently been the largest employer of foreign workers in
Israel.1 At the height of the construction boom in 1996, approximately 76,000
construction workers were imported into Israel. Rumanians were the first to
come, and they have remained the largest national group employed...

EIGHT Illegal Labor Migrants: Life and Work on the Run

Illegal labor migration has loomed large on the Israeli public agenda since the
early 1990s, when the realization that in tandem with the contracted workers,
illegal migrants and their families were settling on the outskirts of Israeli
cities, especially Tel Aviv. In Israel, the public debate over illegal migrants
often is seen as linked to the employment of labor migrants at large...

NINE Deportation

Since 2002, with the establishment of the Deportation Administration (or
immigration police, as it is popularly known), deportation has become aggressive
and brutal. Illegal foreign workers have been picked up at bus stations
early in the morning, dragged from their apartments after doors were broken
down in the middle of the night, or met by police as they arrived at...

TEN The Rhythm of Policy and the Employment System

In June 2006, in yet another twist, the Israeli government decided to ease the
naturalization of children of labor migrants and lower the age threshold for
citizenship entitlement from age ten to six. Also entitled for citizenship are
children who had been living in Israel for at least six years and legally arrived
before reaching age fourteen. It is estimated that about 1,400 families...

ELEVEN Labor Migration Policies and National Identity

Ubi est pane, ibi est patria (“Where there is bread, there is my country”). This
ancient Latin maxim both captures and personalizes the forces that have propelled
uncounted millions throughout history to seek their fortunes beyond
their native lands. However, the precedence of economic considerations binding
those individuals to their communities, as reflected in that saying, tells...

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